Lasers sat to the left of me. Dazed trippers stood smothered in gold glitter to the right.
And in the middle of it all, Wayne Coyne stood on a podium wearing only a space jacket and his underwear. That’s what happens when you’re the frontman for one of rock music’s weirdest and most illustrious bands, the Flaming Lips. And that’s also what happens when you forget to pack your space pants and have to wait for the delivery.
On a hot July evening, I was crammed into a tiny white room at the OKC Fairgrounds. A small camera crew, a gaggle of hardcore Lips fans and three insane lasers all filled the room in anticipation of being apart of the newest Flaming Lips live music video. My goal was to help shoot an extraordinarily intimate music video without letting those fancy lasers fry my camera.
Easy enough, right?
The results premiered on Pitchfork TV, and the website pretty much hit the hammer on the head with the “sparse spectacle” description. Paste and Under the Radar also shared the video. I’m looking forward to more Lips insanity in the near future.
We also had to time to shoot to shoot a cover of Devo’s “Gates of Steel.” It premiered on Stereogum and got some attention from SPIN, Consequence of Sound and Pitchfork.
